


furthest reaches

by septemberlikestea



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: ....i guess? im not sure, Character Study, Gen, hes just standing there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septemberlikestea/pseuds/septemberlikestea
Summary: In the dark, dead village of a land that never wanted to be Hallownest, Brumm stands alone.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 44





	furthest reaches

The air is heavy, cold, wet. There is a sense of death and decline, of a home having been abandoned.

All of those things are foreign to the Troupe. They carry flame that burns away such burdens, with a duty to clear land of the feeling of wrongness that repels bugs from coming back, to rid it of regrets lingering in the long, dark shadows. There is no room for kingdoms to rise again when they are buried under corpses that cannot decay fast enough. There is no room for life to bloom where the dead lie forgotten.

The distorted light in the eyes of beasts, cruelly denied death or life, blazes and seethes when he swipes his staff in front of them. He does not want to be violent, the creatures before him were people, once. They still are, perhaps. He threatens them with the fire that burns with horrors of their fallen kin, he can see the memories of fear and lonliness and dread flicker in the scarlet sparks. The beasts hiss with anger that is not entirely theirs and let him pass them by. 

He doesn't kill anything on his way. This kingdom has seen enough violence already. There is no reason for him to kill out of fear of being killed first; there is nothing here that he won't survive. The Heart protects him, as it protects all those who serve it. The Troupe is always granted safety, no matter how little a member may offer in return.

_Except for one._

Brumm grips his staff tighter and reminds himself why he has on him it in the first place.

It is not _his_ duty to gather flame for the child. Really, he's not supposed to participate at all. The Ritual's completion relies on the summoner, the execution relies on the troupe master's kin, _the Heart's spawn_, who could not be more different from him. Born in flame, born _as_ flame, their forms rarely physical. Something from dreams is far from a living, breathing bug of the waking world.

It wouldn't surprise him if he no longer counts as a bug, he doesn't often think of himself as such. 

_A nightmarish version of what he once was, a scared child's desire to not be harmed again._

He doesn't regret it. Whether others say that his form is a kind of deception, it is him. He is himself, just as he was centuries ago.

(At least, he hopes so.)

Recalling his past never hurts less. Each time, the same aching awakes, a persistent longing for a home he lost. The Troupe cannot come to lands prosperous. If his world didn't come crumbling down before him, he would not exist now. Maybe he should be grateful.

But, his suffering is small and insignificant next to the torture the betrayed light puts innocent mortals through. It's even smaller next to the many sacrifices to his god. 

He swallows his meaningless thoughts with no conclusions down and moves forward.

He climbs and carefully jumps from platforms suspended in the air by firm, reliable spider silk. Dust settles. He's more reluctant to step on the chunks of dirt held up by barely visible thread and warily looks down to see if any have collapsed; he sees nothing except some cocoons, no, _houses_, that have fallen down and are half-submerged in the dark, calm water. He sees the flame he gathered reflect in it, a bright scarlet light surrounded by dreadful gloom.

An echo of life that once was is a haunting feeling on his back. He enters a still open den to comfort himself with a wall behind him, careful not to set the silk ablaze. His staff becomes heavier, old fears cling to it and are set alight by the Nighmare Heart's power. It's enough. He needn't search for more.

He bitterly reminds himself why he has it on him again. The Ritual is almost over.

What kind of god wants its vessel to burn and die? What kind of god protects its vessel so conditionally?

The freedom the Heart grants to the master of the troupe is merely a reflection of how little it cares, how little it is _capable_ of caring for anything besides its survival, masked as a gift. This conversation they've had many times, too many times, and they never came to a conclusion.

In the end, Brumm doesn't believe it's fair. In the end, Grimm doesn't believe it's unfair.

_"You sound tired, my friend. I think we should continue this discussion after you rest," he murmurs with forced confidence. Brumm knows that he is just as tired as him, if not more. Grimm knows he does._

_Yet again, he closes his eyes, and they don't talk about it when he wakes. _

So many choices he was offered in all his long, long life, so many decisions he has made. From life-changing, like joining the Troupe, to relatively insignificant, like buying a curiously made charm from a lone survivor of a tragedy, to ones that never mattered at all, like whether to clean off dust from his accordion before playing or not. It weighs down on him, the knowledge that he was (_is_) exceptionally fortunate to be allowed to pick his future.

He doesn't have to see Grimm burn. He doesn't have to stay. It would take less than half a minute for him to leave the travelling group of performers, which he thinks of as his family. It's simple, he can forget and never turn back.

But he doesn't want to leave, he's selfish enough to make a decision that doesn't affect just him alone. Grimm does not deserve a death that results in perpetuation of a cycle that does nothing. No matter how many lives are taken to sew veins, arteries, tissue for the realm, it will forever be incomplete. Grimm's death will mean nothing.

It was his choice to take the staff and prepare for the Ritual's finale. He needs the summoner to find him.

The musician, the only member of the Troupe who is never comforted by murmurs of how it was Grimm's fate since birth, who cannot accept inevitability, hates the thought of never seeing him again. He knows he will never move on. It's foolish, knowing how regrets can drown those who are not careful, but his chest is tight and his eyes water. Even though he will not be alone, there is a fragile spot in his heart (a heart that is not beating through the realms) that _aches_.

To clear the land from regrets, yet leave behind a memory of a tragedy. To tarnish something already tainted with another sacrifice. He is aware of the history of this kingdom, though he would prefer he wasn't.

It's not his fault. A lesson he's tried learning for so long, to stop blaming himself for what happened to his home, to everyone who's had a life similar to his. He doesn't know if he believes that he's not responsible, but filling his head with a less morbid thought helps, even if only a little.

Far away from his master, who is sleeping for the last time in his life, who will never see his child again, hiding in a someone's abandoned home, now full of corpses, Brumm lets himself be angry not at himself for already missing him, but at the cruelty of the burden laid upon them all by persistent remains of a god.

Maybe he's allowed to want a different end.

There is shuffling and fluttering of wings outside, tapping of small feet. The summoner enters the cocoon, the child follows them. Good.

Maybe, if he wishes hard enough, there will be no more deaths.

**Author's Note:**

> i diagnose brumm with 'cares a lot' because its true.


End file.
